


Guilt

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Illnesses, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 08:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14233752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: After Joker survives the Collector's attack, he isn't sure how to deal with the guilt.





	Guilt

The alcohol burned Joker's throat going down. The empty chairs of the Normandy mocked him, the ghosts of people he'd lost staring at them.

 

No, he couldn't see them. He wasn't crazy, just responsible for this whole mess. Responsible because he wasn’t faster, wasn’t better, wasn’t smarter.

 

"You should not drink, Jeff." EDI's voice had him closing his eyes and dropping his head back in his chair.

 

The damned chair that felt like his whole life. It was usually his freedom, but right then? Right then it felt like a chain.

 

He tipped the bottle back to gulp more. "Thanks, Mom."

 

The silence of EDI rang with disapproval. He'd managed to disapprove an AI. Figured.

 

"If you are intoxicated and fall, you could be injured." EDI's voice dropped lower as if it were a private conversation.

 

It always came back down to that, didn't it? Back to his illness, back to his fragility.

 

Damn, he hated it, hated being reminded of all he couldn’t do.

 

Joker had already put away more alcohol than he had in years. A fall could seriously harm him, and EDI wasn't wrong, so he mostly avoided it. Still, all those empty chairs, the memory of the Collectors dragging off so many people because he'd messed up? Nothing could wipe it away.

 

He pushed against the armrests of his chair, leveraging his weight to his feet, leaving the empty bottle behind.

 

The walkway seemed longer than it had before, and he couldn't' escape the memory of people, of his friends, running for their lives, being taken right around him when he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

 

"You should call for one of the crew to help you to your quarters," EDI said.

 

"No." Joker took his first step, but the whole ship spun. At least, it seemed to. He stumbled, legs working even worse than usual. He caught himself on the doorway.

 

"I am contacting Commander Shepard."

 

"Don’t you dare. I plugged you into this ship, EDI, I can disconnect you anytime."

 

"No, Jeff, you cannot."

 

He groaned, stumbling doing summersaults while he leaned against the doorway, not willing to risk another step.

 

Broken bones hurt.

 

Another minute and Shepard walked up, her arms crossed and face less annoyed than he expected. "Decided one last hurrah before we run off to certain death?"

 

"Well, there's a tradition of having a toast to lost comrades." He let his eyes trace the empty chairs, the stations no one manned. "Let's say I had a lot of people to toast to."

 

She came forward and wrapped an arm around his waist without asking. "Come on, Joker, let's get you to your room so you can sleep this off."

 

Her help only served to deepen the sting inside him. He wasn't a man to worry about his illness much. He'd worked so hard in training to be the best because he wanted to prove himself, he wanted to show that his illness didn't matter, that he could outdo anyone. Pity burned his skin, more painful than any bone he'd broken, than the ache in his legs.

 

She avoided the areas where the few crew members might still be, like she was trying to preserve his ego, his reputation.

 

What reputation?

 

He was in charge and lost the crew, almost the entire ship. Nothing left to salvage after that.

 

She lowered him onto his bed.

 

He laid back, head spinning, tired from going over every single thing he could have done differently, and there were so damned many of them.

 

Shepard took one ankle and pulled it off the bed so his foot rested on the floor. "It'll stop the spinning," she explained.

 

"How do you know so much?"

 

"I've had my share of drunken nights."

 

Neither spoke for a moment, the silence heavy and uncomfortable. Joker normally filled those with humor, with snark, with arrogance, even. Right then? He couldn't find any of that.

 

Instead, he sighed. "It's my fault. They're all gone because I wasn't good enough." He closed his eyes so he didn't have to see her, didn't have to watch the disappointed he knew was there.

 

A soft sigh filled the room. "It's not your fault. Even EDI didn't find the virus. Even you can't predict everything, Joker."

 

"Maybe not, but if I wasn't a cripple, do you really think this would have happened? If you'd been here, someone who could fight, hell, someone who could just walk, you would have fought them."

 

"No. I'd have been taken just like the rest of the crew. There was nothing anyone could do. You saved the ship which is more than anyone could have asked for."

 

He shook his head. She didn't get it. "They took it from me, Shepard."

 

"Took what?"

 

"The ship. The only time I feel normal, like I'm good enough, is when I'm in that chair. It's when I'm behind the controls. Out here, I'm useless. But there? I'm just like everybody else. Hell, I'm better. When they took the Normandy, when I couldn't control her, they took that from me. It's been a long time since I've felt helpless, since I've had to remember that without this ship, I'm just some sick jerk with a limp. When I had to limp past people getting taken, sneak through tunnels to avoid enemies, it was a slap in the face that without the Normandy, I'm nothing."

 

When she didn't respond, he risked opening his eyes to find Shepard staring at him. Her eyebrows had moved closer together, her eyes kinder than he was used to.

 

Shepard was tough. She was unstoppable. She wasn't kind.

 

"You're an idiot, Joker."

 

"No arguments here, Commander."

 

"No one could have fought off the Collectors. And most people? They couldn't have avoided them to save the ship. By doing that, you gave us the chance to go and save our people. It didn't matter if you limped, you did something no one else could have. And so what if you can't fight? I can't lift things the way Grunt does, I can't take down a target from the distance Garrus does, and I can't crush a mech like Miranda. Just because we aren't all the same doesn't mean we don't have things we're good at, things that I need that no one else can do."

 

"If you were here-"

 

"I can't do this without you. You keep thinking I'm this one woman team, but you? You've been with me every step of the way, and I'd never made it this far without you. I need you behind those controls, I need to know you're going to save my ass and pull it out of the fire when no one else could. I don't care about your legs, or your bones, or anything else. You're the heart of this team, Joker, and we'd never have survived this far without you."

 

The words helped. They eased the weight on his chest. "Thank you, Commander."

 

She nodded. "Get some sleep. I'm going to need you at your best when we go give the Collectors hell and get back our crew."

 

When she reached the door, he stopped her with one more question. "Why aren't you yelling at me? I mean, I'm drunk and whining."

 

She didn't turn around, though she angled her face so he could see her in profile. "I've lost a lot of people. I see their faces each time I close my eyes. I get it, Joker, I do. Hell, you’re a lot stronger if it’s taken this long for it to hit you. I'll see you in the morning."

 

The door slid closed behind her, and Joker groaned at the ache in his shoulder from where he'd struck the doorway.

 

"You are wrong, Jeff,” EDI said.

 

"Yeah, I am a lot. But what do you mean?"

 

A pause, a hesitation so thick Joker turned to see the lights of EDI's interface to make sure she was still functioning. They needed her now.

 

"You are not nothing."

 

"Right. That." He shrugged. "In the scheme of things, trust me, I'm nothing." He shifted to get comfortable, keeping that one leg off the bed. Sleep sounded good. At least he didn’t think too much when he was asleep.

 

EDI's response came out soft, so quiet he almost doubted he'd heard it. A tiny admission, an offer when he was drowning. "The scheme of things does not matter, Jeff. You are not nothing to me."

 

Instead of arguing the point, Joker took the gesture for what it was and shut his eyes again. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

 


End file.
